- Published: 27 May 1994
- ISBN: 9781857151701
- Imprint: Everyman
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 224
- RRP: $35.00
The Cossacks
Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.
A brilliant short novel based on Tolstoy's early life as a soldier in the Caucusus, THE COSSACKS has all the energy and poetry of youth while at the same time foreshadowing the great themes of Tolstoy's later years. A young officer finds himself living among tribesmen on the borders of southern Russia. In depicting his experience, Tolstoy explores the birth and death of love, the transience of life, the love of honour and the pain of war, all portrayed amidst the wild and magnificent landscape of the mountains and described in exquisite detail.
- Published: 27 May 1994
- ISBN: 9781857151701
- Imprint: Everyman
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 224
- RRP: $35.00
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About the author
Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia in 1828. He studied Oriental languages and law (although failed to earn a degree in the latter) at the University of Kazan, and after a dissolute youth eventually joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus in 1851. He took part in the Crimean War, and the Sebastopol Sketches that emerged from it established his reputation. After living for some time in St Petersburg and abroad, he married Sophie Behrs in 1862 and they had thirteen children. The happiness this brought him gave him the creative impulse for his two greatest novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Later in life his views became increasingly radical as he gave up his possessions to live a simple peasant life. After a quarrel with his wife he fled home secretly one night to seek refuge in a monastery. He became ill during this dramatic flight and died at the small railway station of Astapovo in 1910.